Our family was flying on a Make-A-Wish trip for my sick son — halfway through the flight, the pilot said, “Mike, there’s one thing about this trip that you and your parents know nothing about.”

the cabin, row by row, as though no one wanted to startle my son.

Mike raised one hand.

He waved the way he had waved at the baggage worker.

I watched two hundred strangers wave back.

Stella folded over him, pressing her face into his hair.

I held them both and stared at the paper pass in my hand.

Since his diagnosis, I had measured Mike’s life in losses.continue reading …